Teen Vaping Declining, According to CDC Study

Headlines that put vaping on blast and warn that the epidemic of e-cigarettes in High Schools and Middle Schools will lead to long term health consequences are incredibly prevalent nowadays. As I sift through the latest vaping articles, most are negative, repetitive, and the majority are about teen vaping. So it surprised me when I looked today and saw a CDC study was released which revealed that teen vaping stats have remained steady over the past year and have actually DECLINED in middle schools.

What?!?

Then what’s with the major hullabaloo over vaping and the push for major regulation of the industry? About two years ago, Teen vaping declined sharply from 16 percent to 11 percent of high schoolers having tried it. This was attributed to a couple factors including new regulations, new warnings, and fewer teens seeing vaping as novel. Some people are trying to discredit the new numbers from the study saying that high schoolers wouldn’t know that the survey was asking about JUUL e-cigs specifically, which is the most popular brand right now among young people. However, I am pretty sure teenagers are smart enough to know they are one in the same. I mean, come on, really?

Teen Vaping and the Push for Regulations

The war over vaping regulations comes down to this: what are the benefits and drawbacks of restricting the market? For opponents of stricter regulations (regulations which could put 98 percent of vape stores out of business), they say that these law could take out a very effective method of harm reduction out of the hands of traditional smokers. People who would quit cigarettes otherwise are now unable to because the vaping market is — in essence — destroyed. Advocates of the regulations say that the health of teenagers outweighs the health of these smokers. However, smoking rates in teenagers are at a historic low. And according to this study, so are teen vaping rates.

So what’s the real motivation for the fear mongering? We’ll let you decide.

**The opinions set forth in this blog are those of the author and do not reflect Mt Baker Vapor**